Sing Talk—Nathan Herford
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Let's ask the Lords help before we start.
Our loving God and Father, we give thanks for the opportunity to be here together, to fellowship and to encourage one another and to sing praise to the the worthy one. And we're thankful that we can.
Encourage one another in the precious truth that's been entrusted to us. Help us tonight to to share a few thoughts to to build one another up in our in our most holy faith. We just ask for help. We give thanks in Jesus name, Amen.
I I wasn't sure.
Umm, you know, there's always this, there's always this tendency to be kind of self deprecating and you want to say other people are better at, at doing this and there's more qualified people and all that. And that's not very helpful because the Lord gives us each a little thing to do and, and the first thing is to be willing to do it. So I'm happy to be here. And I was just thinking about summer and, and all of our activities.
And and Steve mentioned.
The slip and slide? Who like Who likes the slip and slide?
Oh yeah, I love this. The best life and what I'm going to. Is this too loud?
I'm going to, I'm going to actually refer to the slip and slide in a little bit of a negative way. I'd like to think of it as trouble. So as we, as we think about the slip and slide today, tonight, think about our tendency to fall and to slip and to slide in a downward way and away from the Lord. I want to just start with a, a verse in.
Isaiah chapter 28. Maybe somebody could read well, maybe I'll read it because I'm.
So loud.
Isaiah chapter 28.
And.
Verse three and this this might be a or no, I'm sorry, verse 10.
This might be a memory verse. Maybe it should be a memory verse.
Precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line. Here a little, in there a little.
So.
The Lord gives us his word in little bits, line upon line, line upon line. And I was just, I was thinking about this because it's how we change. It's how we learn and I, I fail little.
Upon little. I might just refer to that verse as we're talking as as little upon little, just so we're all kind of on the same page. But we, we make mistakes little bit at a time. We don't usually make a big mistake right off the bat. I don't know if anybody here has as I have.
Ever had the experience where you had to say, I can't believe I did that? Has anybody had that experience? And I don't mean in the humorous way that we might think. I mean, wow, I really messed up. I did the wrong thing. I can't believe I did that. In other words, I'm a Christian and I just did a very unchristian thing. And I've had that experience. And I'm ashamed to say that I remember and I'll, I'll tell myself a little bit. And it's interesting. We talk about being qualified to do something like this and.
And I'm supremely qualified to talk about failure and, and I'm not happy to do it, but I'm willing to do it if it's an encouragement to, to everybody because we, we need to face the fact that we, we need to help each other and accountability is the best way we can do that. And to pretend that we don't make mistakes is, is setting ourselves up for failure. So I'm going to talk about that a little bit.
But we make mistakes little by little, and if you stand on the top of a slippery, slippery slide.
Slip and slide, slippery slope. That was what started this. I thought about slippery slope. You know what that means? It's like one thing you say might imply other things. You know, you allow one thing and that kind of implies that you have to allow a whole bunch of other things and it makes a big mess. That's kind of a slippery slope idea. Did I say that right, more or less? Well, a slip and slide is kind of like that, but you start out on the top. But how do you get to the start of a slippery slipping slide?
And what's what's, what's difficult about standing at the top of the slip and slide? You know when Uncle Steve's putting the soap on and, and Uncle Tim's spraying the water on, it's slippery, right? Obviously you're standing on the grass. What happens if you fall down? You stand back up. But if you're standing on the top of the slippery slice, then slide, I'm going to do it 12 more times just to make it good point. If you stand on top of the slip and slide and you fall, what happens?
00:05:22
You slip and slide, you slip and then you slide and it's hard to stop, right? Especially if it's soapy and wet. And you know, that's how scent is. We just, we make a little mistake and I want to turn to another verse.
Because how does it start? How do we start to fall away? You know, you hear all these cliches, all these things in Christianity that remind us that it's little. It's by small degrees that we get away. It's the thin edge of the wedge. Satan uses the thin edge of the wedge. Or if we're.
Walking on the path. We just start walking slowly off the path and by the time you realize it, you're way off the path and then it's hard to find your way back. Now let's turn to 2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 10.
2nd Corinthians chapter 10 because I think it starts with this.
And I hope this is relevant, maybe some of this.
Doesn't apply to you maybe yet or in a big way. And that's great. That's wonderful.
But all of these things will apply to all of us at some point. We all, we all. Well, here, let's read this. I'll say less. Read more.
2nd Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 3.
And I'll read through verse 5, and that's kind of where I'm thinking verse five, mostly. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal.
But mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, What if, if we can think of the analogy of the slip and slide?
And we all have thoughts that aren't right. We all. We can't help what we see, we can't help what we hear, But we can't help what we entertain, and we can't help what we imagine.
Imagine and our imagination can bring us right to the brink and then you know.
It says.
Bringing into captivity, into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, every thought. Do we consider what difference our thoughts make? Because it's kind of a secret, right? We don't, you know, thankful you can't see my thoughts or I'm thankful that you can't see my failures. I'm thankful that that you guys don't know all the mistakes that I've made. And I'm not going to tell you because you don't need to know, but I've made plenty.
But how does it begin? It begins in just small degrees.
Little upon little, you know, if you build a structure, build a brick building, you'd put brick upon brick upon brick, right? And if you tear it down by hand, we actually had a house. Well, our house had a chimney. And the chimney was all the way from the dirt, as it turned out, not the concrete. It was on from the dirt all the way up through the roof. And we had to take this, this thing apart, and it's a old, it was 100 years old. And we took it one literally brick at a time and handed it down.
Person to person, we took it apart 1 brick at a time and finally that whole thing was dismantled. And you know, we fail one step at a time and we but we also grow one step at a time. And so I.
I was thinking about telling you a story.
It's kind of personal and I, and I don't know if it's entirely appropriate, but maybe I will and I'll, I'll ponder as I go. So my father passed away a couple years ago and as far as I know, my dad was not a Christian when he died. I'm sad to say, but he grew up in a kind of a rough home in some ways. And, and.
He made some choices when he was very young and he chose to start smoking and drinking alcohol when he was thirteen years old. Who's 13 here or younger? Yeah, there's lots of you. Lots, right? Imagine 13 years old, you start doing stuff like that. Can't imagine it, right? It's not something you wouldn't, you wouldn't just wake up tomorrow and do such a thing and then stand there and say, I can't believe I did that, but I'm sure he just had one cigarette.
00:10:06
I'm sure he just had one drink. And I'm not saying this actually, this story is not to encourage you not to drink or smoke. That's not what this is about at all. So don't don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But my dad was a pretty smart guy and he had a lot going for him. But he ended up accomplishing just about nothing in life. And I'm going to make a spiritual application of this as we go on. But I read after he passed away, I was given a memoir.
Memoir is it's kind of a, a recollection of an experience or your life or something like that. And it kind of tells the story of your life from your own perspective. And, and I'll try not to bore you too much, but anyway, I read this memoir and I learned some things about my dad I never knew and some of the older ones. Ever heard of Hal Lindsey? You ever heard of Hal Lindsey? He wrote a book called The Late Great Planet Earth and he taught a lot about prophecy primarily, I think. And I haven't read the book and I haven't studied him a lot, but.
Hal Lindsey was a really accomplished guy and he was really well respected. My dad knew him pretty well and they used to have coffee together in Cannon Beach because Mr. Lindsey would come to Cannon Beach to the Conference Center. Am I speaking too fast?
OK, And my dad had a little Barber shop and it was a failing Barber shop and he had a little house and he had a couldn't pay the rent and it was all beat up. And my dad and and I don't say this to pick on my father, but he couldn't accomplish anything. He couldn't finish anything. And do you think you know why? Who knows why in a, in a material, in a, in a worldly way, you know, finances and money and all that stuff. Why couldn't my dad accomplish anything?
And again, we'll talk about this in a spiritual way later, but why do you think you couldn't?
I mentioned it earlier, He had some really bad habits, some terrible habits. And there were other habits that I won't talk about, but they were so disabling to my dad that he was incapable of finishing anything. So they sat across the table from each other having coffee, and my dad came to the realization, and this is what I was going to share with you. He, he realized that he was the same as Hal Lindsey. There was no difference. But Mr. Lindsey was an author. He was an accomplished.
Speaker and well respected and had a lot of demand for him and he was a really successful person.
My dad was not, so how could my dad say they were the same? What do you think?
They had the same.
P starts with AP.
Potential. They have the same potential. That's what he meant. They had the same potential. He could sit there and he realized he's not smarter than me. He's not.
I, you know, doesn't speak better. Yeah, there's, there's nothing about him that is better in the sense of potential. But they had absolutely, no, they were completely different when it came to accomplishment. And, you know, I was thinking about this in terms of, of, of our spiritual growth. You guys, every single one of you have the same potential. I have the same potential.
Except what's the what's the difference because they were the same age? This is what I was referring to.
I'm a lot older, right? I don't have the same potential as you guys. I'm a lot older. I have very many fewer years than most of you here, and that's a big deal. I don't know if anybody older here. Aunt Bev, would you say that time matters when it comes to learning and growing?
Absolutely, yeah. So time matters and you guys hear this all the time, and I know you've heard plenty of times that you got to read your Bible and pray every day. You got to read your Bible and pray every day.
It's really true. You've got to read your Bible and pray every day and Grandma may oh, you remember Grandma Mayo if you were in Gresham or.
I'm sure you met her, some of you. She always used to like that little song and she'd remind us to read your Bible, pray every day. If you don't read your Bible and don't pray every day, you'll shrink, shrink, shrink. That was the other line that she added in well, editing by Grandma Mail. But but it's true. It's true if we're not growing.
We're shrinking because you can't do both. You can't stand at the top of the slip and slide.
Metaphorically speaking and hope to grow. You can't fill your mind with garbage and hope to learn the truth. You can't do it. So here my father and Mr. Lindsey sat beside each other and my dad could say that they were the same. And he was absolutely depressed and and you know, he's he had he was on his third marriage and couldn't hold a job and couldn't get a house and there's nothing going right. But but he had any realized potential.
00:15:20
No accomplishment. And you know, we think in terms of of learning scriptural truths, learning about the Lord. It's not going to happen by magic. Just like you don't fail at a 90°, you don't leave the path at 90° accidentally, you don't learn.
All at once, it's not going to happen. And some of us kind of try to cheat and we we try to cram for a test, right? You don't study, you don't study and then you try to cram for a test and hope you're gonna pass and it doesn't work. You don't learn all at once. So I would just encourage you.
To think about that, there was a another verse I was going to read.
Here, you know, we well, I'll just refer to this, but Paul encouraged Timothy to continue, continue in the things that he learned. And Peter encourages us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior. And again, it's lying upon literal line, line upon line. It's not, it's not by accident that we're given the word of God.
To read like it is, we can only read one word at a time. And, and so it takes a lot of discipline, it takes a lot of perseverance. I was talking to a friend recently and he admitted, he admitted that he had never read the whole Bible. And I, he was kind of ashamed. I said, Oh well.
I haven't either, I just made a confession so I haven't read the whole Bible like this.
Cover the cover. I've never done that. I think as I've considered it. I think I've read all of it, most of it.
I think we kind of Passover things and excuse ourselves, but I would encourage you and who has, I'm not trying to embarrass anybody, but who has read the entire Bible cover to cover. It's great. A lot of young people and older people. I just raised my hand, but I was just trying to encourage you to raise your hand. I haven't done it, but I will do it. I will do it. I mean, I, I think it's not necessary, right? It's not absolutely necessary to be a Christian, but I think it's necessary to, to really grow and to really know.
To know our Savior more perfectly.
So, yeah, the other thing I was going to talk about as far as so I do want to focus on the, the, the fact that we we should.
We should be well, we should be growing.
But you know one of the thing about the slip and slide, once you start down that slip and slide, how easy is it stop?
It's really hard, especially if they've lubed it up, it's really hard to stop. And that's how sin is. And Satan knows that he loves to just stumble you a little bit. And then we, we start to slide slowly, but we gain and we gain it at some point. It's really hard to stop. That's what my dad found out, sadly. So I just, and again, I'm not trying to say this to encourage you because I'm scared you're going to do some terrible thing in life and, and pick up some terrible habits, but that's, that's how it works. Starts with a thought, right? And the thought turns into a what?
Turns into an action. And if we do something, we act on something enough, what does it become? Becomes a habit. And then we have a habit and it kind of encourages it makes it easier to do something a little bit bigger. And then if we do that little bigger thing for long enough, then it becomes a bigger habit and then it grows and grows and grows. That's the slip. That's the slip and slide, so.
Let's just pray.
Sure, sure.
OK, Father, we give thanks now for this time together. We thank you for that precious word and thank you for the encouragement in it. I.
To learn, to grow, to continue to seek.
The truth to buy, the truth to desire those things that are good. To think on those things that are that are good.
And we just asked for help to recognize our enemy and.
00:20:03
Help to to bring our thoughts into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Help us Lord, to encourage one another in these things and and not be afraid to to be a help to one another. We're thankful for that love to us, most especially for the Lord Jesus for our Savior. Thankful for the food that's been prepared for providing for us in such a a wonderful way every day.
We're grateful for thy love and we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.